This is sort of the opposite of sharing things on Facebook.
That's because Facebook is constantly pushing you to expand your
friend circle and publish more stuff publicly -- trends that will
likely continue as
Facebook announces its email product today.

Path's idea is one worth pursuing: Facebook is now -- by design
-- too public for many people to share some of the stuff they'd
only want to share with family and close friends. Some of it may
be too boring or mundane for the general public, but interesting
to people you're close with. Some of it may be too personal. So
that's what Path is for.

Likewise, the "inner circle" social graph could eventually -- if
enough people buy in -- be worth a lot as a platform. Advertisers
and other developers would LOVE to get into your inner circle,
because it means the recommendations you make will be trusted
more, and the connections you have are worth more.

Path's whole concept could easily just be a setting on
Facebook. "Share with inner circle only," or something
like this. But, in Path's favor, Facebook has been trying to make
this an easy process for years, and has failed to make it easy
enough. No one knows this more than Path CEO Dave Morin, who was
previously a rising star at Facebook.

So, how will Morin differentiate Path from Facebook? By focusing
on mobile, he tells us. That's where the growth is in computing.
And Path's team seems to have a knack for making beautiful mobile
interfaces.

We would add: Facebook has done a relatively crappy job with
mobile, though it's trying to catch up.

Facebook and Twitter are making people more promiscuous
with what they share. Sure, there will always be some
stuff you don't share publicly. But the trend is toward sharing
more, not less, so this may work against Path.

Morin says Path did a lot of research, and found that there are a
lot of photos stuck in peoples' phones that tell a good story,
but don't get shared on Facebook or Twitter. As we noted, some
may be too boring or too personal. That's where Path can
complement Facebook.

Path is entering a very crowded field. There's a
lot more hot
iPhone photo sharing apps right now than there were two
months ago, especially Instagram
and PicPlz.
Path is obviously more than just a photo sharing app, but many
people won't realize that. And that's not to say that Path
couldn't beat the other apps, but it could be harder to get
noticed.

To that, Morin says, "We're not a photo blogging service. We're
not public. Path is a place for you to keep it close and share
with your close friends."

Path, the app, may not be noisy and sexy enough to get
people addicted. Even if a product fills a real need for
people, it's VERY hard to get them to add your app/site to their
routine.
Hot Potato was a great concept, but no one remembered to
launch it when they were watching a game. Will your small inner
circle of friends make enough photo updates to get you to launch
Path every day? Many times a day? Will you feel rewarded for
remembering to open the app. It may take some good, old-fashioned
email blast alerts to remind you.

Morin says Path has an interesting feedback loop to get people
checking back: It tells you if your friends have looked at your
picture yet. This could help, and reminds us of the cool feature
that AOL used to have for its email service -- you could see if
people have read your message yet, a feature that regular email
doesn't support.